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Friday, December 21, 2001
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 Friday, December 21, 2001
started 12/21/2001; 9:26:24 AM - last post 12/26/2001; 12:46:03 AM
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Doc Searls - Friday, December 21, 2001 
12/21/2001; 1:26:24 PM (reads: 3672, responses: 4)
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K-Spam 
| | Not only have Ken Rutkowski's tech news emails failed to respect my repeated unsubscribe requests, but word comes from Bret Fausett (he of the excellent icann.blog) that Ken may be harvesting email addresses in the worst tradition of those spamsters who fill our email boxes with crap every morning. |
| | It's worse than Hotel California, because you don't necessarily have to check in to get stuck. I once subscribed to the pho mailing list (a discussion on digital music distribution) only to find after a few months that my e-mail address had been mined by Ken for a free subscription to his newsletter. You're right: great use of the Internet for a product; the worst use of the Internet for marketing it. |
| | I remember this well because I used a new e-mail address just for that list and filtered all the list-mail into a folder. One day I started getting e-mail to my new address outside the list folder. It was from Ken. Ken was a regular poster on the pho list, so I know he had access to my address. I don't know for a fact that it was Ken personally who mined it, but I do know that my virgin e-mail address was subscribed to his newsletter without my permission. |
| | I'm willing to give Ken the benefit of some doubt on this one, since he clearly jobs out both his email list and his Web site design. But the irony is pretty thick around a guy who reports on a medium about which he appears to be missing some basic clues. |
And he's lookin' good, too
| | Ambrose Bierce, one of the 19th century's great journalists and adventurers, disappeared in Mexico in 1914 while attempting to hook up with Pancho Villa. Now he returns for this interview with Don Swaim, whose site devoted to the old man is here. |
Out of the darkness
| | Winter came in with a bang last night. After getting hammered by huge rains, hail, wind, thunder and lightning (very rare here in South Coastal California), the power went out in the middle of the 11 o'clock news. A second later, a loud bang somewhere along the street. After we fired up a bunch of candles I came into my office and discovered large puddles of water on the floor. |
| | An hour passed while everybody went to bed and I mopped up as much as I could. Then I decided to go out and see how extensive the outage was. Turned out the darkness only covered the local neighborhood: maybe a square half mile. I guessed that a transformer blew out. No trees were down. And no crews were out, either. I assumed somebody had called in to report the problem, but there was no evidence of it. |
| | So, when I got back I called Southern California Edison on the only phone that doesn't depend on electric power. The nice lady who promptly answered said, "No, we haven't heard anything from around there." Lesson: don't assume. |
| | The power came back a few minutes ago, just after 6am. |
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Geoff Allen - Re: Friday, December 21, 2001
12/21/2001; 3:22:59 PM (reads: 469, responses: 0)
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Lesson: don't assume.
Yep. I know our power company (Avista, formerly Washington Water Power, which was a much better name) specificially encourages anyone affected by an outage to call it in, because that helps them determine the extent of the outage. They've even sent out phone stickers that give the number and say something like "please report all outages." And if you've heard anything like a bang, they really want to know that, since that can help them determine where something blew.
Troubleshooting power outages is a bit like troubleshooting computer problems, except it's more spread out geographically, and therefore, harder.
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matt goyer - Re: Friday, December 21, 2001
12/21/2001; 9:56:25 PM (reads: 510, responses: 0)
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I'll vouch for Bret. I too am a Pho subscriber who's email address was harvested by Ken for his newsletter. I think it took a while for the collective to realize what had happened but once we did we ate him alive.
Matt
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Ken Rutkowski - Re: Friday, December 21, 2001
12/24/2001; 2:12:45 AM (reads: 826, responses: 1)
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In my defense...
I have ran my newsletter list for over 6 years and harvesting is something I never do. I allow anyone to sign up a friends and it's very easy to unsubscribe from the newsletter. If there is EVER a problem (and of course there is at times) I enclose my Home Phone number and make myself available 24/7 to anyone!
Ken
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rusty - "Signing up a friend"
12/26/2001; 4:46:03 AM (reads: 678, responses: 0)
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I personally consider the ability to sign someone up to a mailing list without their knowledge equivalent to spamming. You'll notice every responsible mailing list manager prevents this by requiring a "confirmation" step before the subscription. Leaving it open is asking for trouble, like when someone signed me up to it without my permission. Was I mad at whoever did that? No, Ken, I was mad at you. Turn that off -- it'll just make people dislike you.
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